The Neil Patrick Harris-Rachel Bloom Feud, Explained

TV Guide

Wednesday

Jun 13, 2018 at 9:03 PM

The best and worst part of celebrities being on social media is that we all get to gawk and stare at their feuds in real time instead of waiting to read second-hand accounts of it in the gossip rags. Most recently, Neil Patrick Harris got into it with Crazy Ex-Girlfriend's Rachel Bloom at the 2018 Tonys, and the saga was a journey, to say the least.

Spanning four days, several tweets, and one pretty detailed interview, here's the abridged version of what went down. Spoiler alert: there's a happy ending.

How It Started

Rachel Bloom served as the back-stage host for the Tony Awards for the second time on Sunday (June 10), and just like last time, she donned a small top hat for her performance. Her brand of humor wasn't to Neil Patrick Harris' tastes though, and he sent out the following tweet during the show:

"Who is the woman in the top hat backstage at @TheTonyAwards? Gideon remarked that she says 'like' and 'oh my god' a lot. I'm confused..." (Gideon is Harris' son.)

"I'm a big fan of yours. We've met numerous times and my husband, Dan Gregor, wrote for How I Met Your Mother for 5 years. Notably, he wrote the episode where your character finally meets his father."

While not exactly an epic clapback, the tweet clearly implied Bloom was looking for an apology of sorts, which she didn't get.

Harris later responded, "Indeed! Well said. Thanks for the reminder. How was backstage?"

Who is the woman in the top hat backstage at @TheTonyAwards? Gideon remarked that she says 'like' and 'oh my god' a lot. I'm confused...

— Neil Patrick Harris (@ActuallyNPH) June 11, 2018

I'm a big fan of yours. We've met numerous times and my husband, Dan Gregor, wrote for "How I Met Your Mother" for 5 years. Notably, he wrote the episode where your character finally meets his father.

— Rachel Bloom (@Racheldoesstuff) June 11, 2018

Indeed! Well said. Thanks for the reminder. How was backstage?

— Neil Patrick Harris (@ActuallyNPH) June 11, 2018

The GQ Interview

The controversy faded into the background over the next couple of days, seemingly written off as one of those weird celeb exchanges on Twitter that flare up and fizzle out quickly. Then, Bloom was asked about it in an interview with GQ that was released Wednesday (June 13) morning, which gave new life to the controversy.

When the reporter asked if the exchange was just a bit gone wrong, Bloom shut that idea down right away. "No, no, no. It wasn't a joke. Basically... I saw that tweet. And I was kind of devastated. I was actually going to tweet, 'This makes me sad.' But then I was like, 'Ehhhhhhhhhh... I don't want to give him that, necessarily.' Look. I've met him a couple times. Very recently, backstage in the dressing room of a Broadway show. And we hung out for a solid 15 minutes with the star of this Broadway show. It was just bizarre to me that it wouldn't ring a bell. And also, that he wouldn't Google it."

Bloom went on to mention what an important role How I Met You Mother played in her and her husband's lives, and she even joked that her real feud should be with Patrick Harris' kid since the negative feedback apparently came from him.

The real talk came when Bloom started to talk about Harris' fame and comedic ability -- or lack thereof.

"But look, he's not a writer, so his version of a Twitter joke is to just kind of... live-comment to Twitter followers with kind of random, unformed thoughts. And fame does that to you -- where you think every kind of random, unformed thought is a gem, because you get 10,000 likes from it... Even if what you're saying is, I don't know, kind of weird or unoriginal, you're still getting a lot of approval and dopamine surges for saying it..."

The Apology

After that pretty public call out -- plus the reminder that no actual apology had ever been received from him -- Neil Patrick Harris took to Twitter again to set the situation right.

"Sincere apologies to @Racheldoesstuff for my Tony tweet," he wrote. "I failed to research her before pressing 'send', and what I thought was a funny comment in our living room must have been far from funny to read, backstage, mid show. As a performer and a parent, I should have know better."

Sincere apologies to @Racheldoesstuff for my Tony tweet. I failed to research her before pressing 'send', and what I thought was a funny comment in our living room must have been far from funny to read, backstage, mid show. As a performer and a parent, I should have know better.

— Neil Patrick Harris (@ActuallyNPH) June 13, 2018

The Reconciliation

Soon after his apology tweet went out, Bloom responded, "Hi, thank you for this! Apology accepted."

And they all lived happily ever after -- hopefully with a stricter screening process during the "to tweet or not to tweet" portion of their awards show viewings.